Stephen Totilo

A job listing posted by the creators of the just-delayed-to-2013BioShock Inifinite on LinkedIn on May 2 seeks a "talented and experienced individual to help us with the networking aspects of BioShock Infinite."

The first BioShock game had no multiplayer mode, a rarity for first-person shooters. BioShock 2,…
Read more Read more

"Here's what I have to say about multiplayer," Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine said as I broached the topic during an interview with the designer last week in New York City. "It's what we said about BioShock 1: We have not made any determinations about multiplayer.

"I will say that we experiment with things, but for us we are never interested in making a multiplayer mode you could just play in some other game. Because, A) that's not creatively interesting and B), financially, you're wasting your time. They're going to go play Halo. They're going to go play Call of Duty.

"If we do something new - if we do something like Left 4 Dead that has something new to say - people will come to your game. If you don't, don't waste your time."

Today, when Infinite's delay from October 2012 to February 2013 was announced, I speculated on Twitter that a single-player BioShock Infinite might have needed to be moved away from a fall season full of multiplayer online shooter (the new Call of Duty, the new Borderlands, etc.) But friend-of-the-site and expert fact-digger-upper Superannuation Tweeted at me the listing I'm quoting above.

Levine's 2010 stance that he wouldn't tolerate me-too multiplayer remains reassuring, as does the positive examples of good multiplayer added to formerly single-player games such as Assassin's Creed and (trust me, because I've played it) Max Payne. But BioShock 2's coolly-received multiplayer is its own testament to the questionable need of some sort of add-on mode competitive mode.

There must be something about the number three that signals that Rockstar Games is done messing…
Read more Read more

For all we know, "networking" could refer to syncing leaderboards in BioShock Infinite or enabling campaign co-op. Or it could mean what it conventionally means with first-person video games these days: competitive multiplayer. Earlier today, Levine said BioShock Infinite won't be at E3 this year. We won't see it for a bit, and presumably, we'll not get a good answer to whether the February 2013 game really does have multiplayer for some time.